Page 2 of The Lover’s Eye

Isobel descended the stairs, dressed in a warm redingote of lavender wool. Her trunks had already been loaded into the coach and four waiting outside; all that barred her way was exchanging farewells with her father.

He was seated in his usual place, behind the rosewood desk in the cluttered study. Beatrice was stretched out on the chaise longue, cracking an orange eye at Isobel as she passed.

“Are you off, my girl?” Lord Ridgeway asked, removing his spectacles and rubbing one eye. He still wore a flannel dressing gown and his white hair was unruly.

“Yes, Papa. I shouldn’t keep them waiting in the cold.”

He made to rise. “I shall see you off.”

“Oh, that’s quite unnecessary,” she said quickly.

Her father stilled, raising a brow. “If you think I haven’t seen the conditions, I have. Brook made me aware of them. Wasn’t sure I’d still want you to go.”

Isobel’s pulse quickened. Overnight, a light but steady precipitation had fallen, swathing the hills in a mix of snow and ice. She said nothing, but met her father’s gaze steadily.

“Bah. I can see it in your eyes; you’ll throw a dashed fit if I forbid it. I’ve been considering all the morning if I should at least take Lady Sempill up on her offer.”

“Offer?”

“I was going to tell you last night, had you not hurried off. She offered to accompany you—as chaperone, of course.”

Isobel smiled, but her hands clenched into fists behind her back. “I daresay she would not wish to travel in these conditions.”

He walked over to one of the large windows and rubbed the back of his hand coarsely against a foggy pane. “No. You’re correct on that end. I supposed it would not be necessary, your needing a chaperone. You should be safely to Shoremoss Hall by nightfall.”

His white head remained in front of the cleared pane, studying the landscape with scrutiny. He said, quiet enough to be speaking only to himself, “It is looking dashed messy, however.”

“We are getting such an early start,” Isobel said with a small, anxious laugh. “There is time to spare for the damp conditions.”

Lord Ridgeway at last drew his head away from the window. His lips were bent into a frown as he escorted his daughter to the front steps. An aged black coach was waiting below, the four horses shaking out their manes and stamping their feet, excited by the brisk temperature.

The snowfall had eased for the moment, with only the barest flakes falling as the viscount squinted at a sky of uninterrupted grey. Isobel had been holding a partial breath since awaking to the wintry scene. It stifled her chest now.

“Brook,” Lord Ridgeway called to the coachman. A middle-aged man in black livery padded up the stairs, his feet seeming to slide a little on the stones. “I trust you will turn back, should the conditions not be suitable once you reach Kittwick?”

The nearest village. Isobel’s hands writhed inside her fur muff.

“As you wish, my lord,” the coachman said with a bow.

The spot where Isobel’s father kissed her cheek was colder than the rest of her skin as she made her way down the slick steps, a passing gust of wind gravitating to the wettened spot. A footman handed her into the vehicle, and before the door closed, she turned to give her father a parting wave.

“How did you get him to agree?” Betsey, Isobel’s lady’s maid, whispered once the door was shut.

Isobel blew out the pent-up breath, molding into the stale smelling velvet cushions. “I’m still not sure I have. Brook may turn back once we reach Kittwick.”

But the snow had stopped by the time they reached the village, and the party travelled on, crunching over roads hardened by the freeze.

Isobel had brought a beaten volume of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads with her, but found the rough sway of the coach not conducive to reading.

She rested her head against the squabs, willing her stomach to settle.

“Try not to worry, miss,” Betsey said, when they reached the midpoint of their journey. The horses were resting outside while the group took lunch inside a clean little coaching inn. “The letter said she was comfortable, did it not?”

“Yes,” Isobel said, idly spinning her spoon through a bowl of stew. But I don’t know whether to believe him. I don’t know him .

She had only met Lord Pemberton a few times, and the best thing he had to recommend himself was her sister’s unwavering admiration.

He wore the lavish costumes befitting a marquess, but his manner was rough.

Plainspoken and dispassionate, making no effort to endear himself to Isobel or her father.

She was surprised he had bothered to write her at all.

When Isobel had managed to get down half her lunch, she rejoined the others outside. Brook was staring at the sky, shielding his eyes from a fresh onslaught of snow. It was falling heavily—and worse, already accumulating on the rooftops and the horses’ harnesses.

“Most unusual, that,” he said. “I rather expected things would improve, being so close to the coast as we are now. It might be advisable for us to stop here for the night, miss. We have some fifteen miles to go, yet, and if continues like this …”

Isobel couldn’t meet his eye. The wind whipped at the length of her redingote, and she worked to tuck a lock of black hair back beneath her bonnet.

Of course he was right. It was midafternoon, but the first whisper of darkness lay over the hills.

The inn behind her was bright and inviting, promising no risk—but, also, no reward.

One more burst of energy from the horses would see her safely to Marriane’s side.

“I want to continue,” Isobel said finally.

Brook was in no position to argue, but his expression darkened with unease as they set out again, leaving the smoking chimneys behind. Isobel pulled back the curtains and huddled deeper into the cushions, which had grown warm from the heat of her body.

They travelled through a dense pine forest, the trees standing crisp and agile, stretching out as far as the eye could see. The world was darker beneath the forest’s canopy, but the trees huddled together like close companions, breaking the falling mix of snow and ice.

Isobel turned to Betsey with a smile. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“I don’t know, miss. I think it’s eerie myself.”

When the coach and four emerged on the other side, they were met with proof of how much the trees had tempered the storm.

Evidence came in the form of wind, which whistled sharply enough to make Betsey start.

It shook the poorly sprung coach, and Isobel felt an instant squeeze of guilt.

Guilt for declining to stay at the last inn; guilt for being moderately warm and dry, when all she could think of was the coachman, footman, and four horses left to the elements.

She bit the inside of her cheek and closed the curtain. She tried to distract herself with thoughts of Marriane and guesses as to what Shoremoss Hall and the wild Northumberland coastline would be like. Perhaps they had travelled further than she realized, and it was just around the corner.

Her efforts fast proved futile. Isobel’s hand flung to the curtains again, and her stomach dipped at what she saw.

It was nearly dark, and the snow fell in a volatile blur. She could make out the forest behind them; the tops of the pines a sharp delineation against the surrounding white, a black serration against an angry sky. They couldn’t have travelled above a mile.

“Should I ask them to stop?” Isobel asked suddenly, her voice high.

“Stop?” Betsey asked, a brow lifting. “Little good that would do us here. We must go on, at least until the next village.”

But the next village never came. They had entered a pastoral vastness. If there were any trees or homes to be seen, they were obscured by the driving wind and snow. What felt like an hour to Isobel passed before the coach ambled down a hill, and stopped.

“Oh, thank heavens,” she said. “Maybe we’ve arrived.”

The strained expression on Betsey’s face did nothing to bolster her hopes. The coach moved forward a measure, then fell back. One of the horses gave a sharp whinny.

Isobel was rapping on the roof to get Brook’s attention and demand the animals rest when he appeared, a dark figure beyond the opening door. “We’ve gotten stuck, miss,” he said against the wind. His nose and cheeks were bright red, his eyes squinted to slits.

Stuck, indeed. Brook and the footman’s attempts to push the coach free were unsuccessful, even after the ladies stepped out to lighten the vehicle.

From outside, her boots squishing in a mix of sludge and ice, Isobel was confronted with the full truth. When the coach had reached the low point of the hill, its wheels had lodged in thick mud. Attempts to move it only sprayed more of the filth up and sank the wheels in deeper.

Both Brook and the footman looked exhausted, their faces haggard and their overcoats soaked. The horses did not look much better, shifting irritably in place and blowing out labored breaths, which turned to steam in the frigid air.

A general hopelessness had begun to settle over the group when the wind eased for a moment, and Betsey gasped. “Why, there’s someone coming!”

A dark, shadowy figure trudged down the hill toward them, the snow rising above his ankles in places.

He reached the coach, giving its slumped stature a cursory appraisal before turning to its inhabitants.

Isobel squinted against cutting wind to see, but his face was cast into obscurity by the weak coach lamps.

“Got yourself in a spot of trouble, have you?” he asked. “I heard the commotion from the lodge gates.”

Lodge gates . Isobel could have cheered. She would be at her sister’s bedside in minutes.

Brook was conversing with the servant, whose voice now held a note of disbelief. “You’ve come all the way from Kittwick? In this?”

“Yes, sir,” Brook said. “You know of it?”

“Only heard of it. There’s a Lady Pemberton lives nearby, and she hails from there.”

Isobel’s heart sank. The ladies had climbed back into the coach and were shivering beneath their rugs, but she could still hear the ongoing conversation. If not Shoremoss Hall, where were they?

“Lady Pemberton’s sister, you say?” the servant asked. “Well, we must get you taken care of, before you all catch cold. If his lordship is not obliged to accommodate you, I shall see you to the Three Hens myself.”

There was a brief pause. “Is he not a generous type?”

“Oh, he does well enough. Just a peculiar man, is all.”

Isobel was growing impatient. Up the hill, she could make out the faint outline of looming black gates and a stout grey lodge—neither of which revealed anything about where they had landed, or whose hospitality they now relied so heavily upon.

“Who is his lordship?” Brook finally asked.

“Oh, you don’t know where you are? This is Cambo House.”

When he was met with the same blank, shivering gazes, the boy continued in some astonishment, “Lord Trevelyan, the Earl of Cambo?”